Square and Nintendo reach an agreement that will bring Final Fantasy back to Nintendo's platforms after a five-year absence.According to the Saturday edition of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Square and Nintendo have reached an agreement that will bring Final Fantasy games to the GameCube and Game Boy Advance platforms. Under the agreement, Nintendo has confirmed that president Hiroshi Yamauchi will allocate money from Fund Q--a fund Yamauchi set up in January to help encourage software development--to a new Square-affiliated development house. In return, Square will establish the new development house with help from Akitoshi Kawazu, a director from the Final Fantasy development team, by the end of this month.

The Square affiliate is expected to release games for both the GameCube and Game Boy Advance before the end of the year. Square properties other than Final Fantasy were not mentioned in the report.

My thoughts:

Does this mean they're leaving Sony?- No.

But they've always been a one-console developer before!- They're forming a new company to port their titles to Gamecube and Gameboy Advance in-house. That leaves the existing company to continue making games for their rather substantial fanbase on PS2.

Why is this happening?- Square lost a ton of money on that Final Fantasy movie. They're about to embark on something just as risky with FFXI being entirely online, particularly with the PS2 version requiring a brand new accessory estimated to cost $150. The PC version will offset that, but still... If it's successful, they're back in business. But they need to bolster their income just in case, and leverage the hell out of this license's popularity.

But Nintendo doesn't have any online plans.- They didn't have any Final Fantasy games on the horizon until a minute ago, either. Things change.

Not with Nintendo, they don't.- True enough. But if Nintendo insists on living in the dark ages, you can still count on their users having a PC in the house. Those are still potential subscribers, and a new FF game is good advertizing.

The XBox has a broadband network on the way!- Why, so it does.

Does that mean XBox is going to get Final Fantasy games?- Anything's possible now, isn't it? E3 is May 21-24. I'd expect an announcement of some kind then.